“High-school bands are always stretched for funds,” said Bryant. “This was a fun way for us to make it a give-back.”
Earlier in the year, Heritage Bank was the sponsor of the Keystone Leadership breakfast for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington. This event, in which Heritage Bank partnered with Beaches Restaurant, served Sunday breakfast to about 400 people. Heritage Bank staff served as waiters and waitresses. Proceeds were used to send Boys and Girls Clubs members to a leadership conference. Heritage Bank was also the title sponsor for the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington’s annual luncheon in May.
On Oct. 12, Heritage Bank is sponsoring an inaugural fundraising event for the Clark County Food Bank. Titled “Taste and See,” the event will be held at the new food distribution warehouse in the Cold Creek Industrial Park just north of Minnehaha.
According to Bryant, the event will feature “food tasting and a lot more.” Attendees will see the food bank in action, and Heritage Bank employees will be volunteering at the warehouse.
“We get when we give,” said Bryant. “Events such as these enable bank employees to get together and do something transcendent.”
Typically, said Bryant, the bank choses events based on input from committees formed in each county (Clark, Cowlitz and Multnomah). The committees identify events and make recommendations for what to give and how much.
“It’s a ground-up activity,” said Bryant. “There has to be interaction between executive management and staff, but we like it when it finds its origin in the staff.”
Bryant said that philanthropy and economic success are “indelibly linked.”
“As a financial institution,” he said, “we depend on economic vitality. That vitality is what must drive unwavering compassion. It’s incumbent on all of us as businesspeople to be very strong financially and very strong philanthropically – that is a sustainable business.”
